


Forgiveness

by UniquelyCommon



Category: Naruto
Genre: Angst, Emotional Sex, Established Relationship, F/M, Flashbacks, Guilt, Hurt/Comfort, PTSD, SasuSaku - Freeform, SasuSaku Week 2018, Trauma, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-26
Updated: 2020-04-26
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:15:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,961
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23853682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UniquelyCommon/pseuds/UniquelyCommon
Summary: When Sasuke's demons make an appearance at night, Sakura is there to chase them away.
Relationships: Haruno Sakura/Uchiha Sasuke
Comments: 1
Kudos: 63





	Forgiveness

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for Sasusaku Week 2018 Day 2 with the prompt "Favorite angst moment".
> 
> This fic was sitting on my Tumblr and I had never gotten around to posting it on other platforms. This was one of the few pieces I've written that I'm actually proud of.
> 
> Hope you enjoy!

The soft light of the half moon broke the top of the trees; shining down on the quaint, cozy log cabin nestled deep in the woods in the Land Of Fire. The tendrils of light escaped into the half open window, a faint illumination on the very naked occupants of the room. The young couple had just tied the knot not too long ago (in a small, unremarkable _-if you can even call it that-_ village.) They were celebrating their honeymoon, and their dwindling experiences in an actual bed. He was above her as her body sank into the feather mattress, his hips settled into the apex of her legs.

Her belly was a cauldron of liquid heat as he worshiped her with his silken touch. He took his time memorizing her features, his index finger tracing her curves. Her skin shivered and broke out in goose bumps under his delicate touch. He handled her like fine china, as if afraid that one false move and she would shatter into a million pieces, slipping out of his grasp, falling into the suffocating depths of the void. He touched everywhere; every forgotten crack and crevice, and left nothing undiscovered that night.

Wherever he traced left a trail of blazing fire: starting with the peak of her cheekbone, down to the fullness of her lips. He lingered there slightly, tracing his fingertip against her bottom lip. They were soft, plush, and swollen from his earlier ministrations. Her eyes were closed, her feminine and pink brow relaxed, as if in a peaceful slumber (but he knew she wasn’t because of her candid reactions to his touch).

He removed his fingers, replacing them with his lips as his hand continued its journey downward. He let his breath mingle with hers, sharing the same space, sharing part of him. He started to realize this is as close to a human being as he had ever been, that his soul could mingle with another. He was laid bare before her, as bare as his skin against hers. Even if they had kissed before, it felt as if it were the first time; even if they had made love before he felt like a virgin.

Her skin felt like satin. His open hand brushed against her neck, feeling the quick flutter of her pulse under her porcelain skin. He once held her like this, her main artery held within the grasp of his hand. His breath hitched. His head ached with the beat of his pulse as a thick surge of adrenaline washed over him. His body flushed and he broke out in a feverish sweat.

Reality melted away and instead of touching her in the bed they were in a much different place, and he was touching her in a much different manner. Back during a time when the world was fragile, and he was much younger and damaged. His arm was pushing her up in the air, leaving her feet to dangle helplessly in the air, her kunai in his once possessed second arm. The image of her terror burned in his memory, eyes wide and glossy with unshed tears, as his fingers closed around her windpipe.

The vivid recollection had his eyes burning crimson as he recoiled, jerking away from her body. The bedsprings creaked and shifted under the strain of his weight as he snapped around to sit on the edge of the bed. Her eyes snapped open in panic, and her skin felt the flood of tingling iciness in the wake of his skin’s absence.

No explanations were needed as she slowly approached behind him, like approaching a wounded animal that was on the verge of fleeing. She had known of the demons that still lingered in his mind, packed in the recesses of a forgotten, imaginary closet. She knew that sometimes the door opened a crack and would ooze out like a festering wound. He had done it before, gone into seclusion because of the paranoid reality his mind created, a world where he believed he would lose control and hurt her - _even kill her_ \- if he so much as caressed her. The first time it had happened he disappeared for a week, she was heartbroken, but ignorant, at the time. She was unaware that when he had touched her chest he had seen a flash of his Chidori piercing her heart and the vision had been so disturbing he had left to empty his stomach. When she learned of his flashbacks from Naruto she sobbed.

She brought her hand to his bare back, saying his name softly. She smoothed her hand over him in repetitive circles that she knew calmed his anxiety. His head was in his hands, fisting his inky locks. His breath was the kind of ragged he got when he was fighting to hold back his emotions.

“Sasuke-kun, I’m here, I’m real, and you didn’t hurt me.”

He needed repetition; he needed to hear her say everything was going to be okay, even if it was repeated to the point where the words no longer held meaning. He needed assurance that his hand wasn’t closing around her throat, that he wasn’t soaked in her blood.

All those years ago, at a time that felt nearly like a distant haze, the time where he was a rage-full teenager: when his mind was a soup of hurt, anger, adrenalin, and fleeting memories. He needed to prove to himself that he was not that boy anymore. He needed to know that he was redeemable, savable despite all of the heinous acts he committed. 

When he attacked her the first time he had acted on instinct, his Chidori hand thrust to pierce her, intent on scaring her, driving her away. She was a distraction, a roadblock. His mind gravitated towards her when he was in Orochimaru’s lair, poisoning his concentration. If he could scare this girl enough she would hate him, loathe him and he would be done, free from the shackles of her feelings, free for hate to roam unabated in his mind. But she didn’t hate him; she could never give up trying to save him from the darkness that was slowly swallowing him up.

By the time they talked again they were older, and the darkness had fully cultivated his mind. She was still hopelessly in love with him. She had come to take his life with her own hand, to liberate his soul once and for all. But at the last second she hesitated and he reciprocated. He held her in his hand, her face drawn up in fear. She looked into those endless vats of onyx and they exposed his soul: a lost boy looking for his place in the midst of all the overpowering emotions. She knew in that instant more than ever that she needed to rescue him. Whether it meant taking his life she was unsure, but she knew she was weak and she needed to be stronger if she was going to attain her goal.

And when he came back to her after the war, shattered, she tried her best to pick up and mend the pieces. It would take years before he could touch her without flashbacks, to hold her at night without waking up screaming with the image of her bloodied corpse against his palms, the same image that was wracking his brain now. For now that he escaped the darkness it’s long hands still snaked their way into his consciousness, trying to grab and drag him down again.

He remembered one time, during his episodes, that Sakura had grabbed his head, pulling it down to cradle it against her chest, laying his ear flat against her breast to hear the soft lull of her heart beat. _‘See, Sasuke-kun?_ ’ She had said then, _‘proof that I’m still alive, that you didn’t kill me.’_ And it had chased the demons away that night.

Remembering that fond memory, he turned around. His hand gripped her hipbone as he nuzzled his nose against her collarbone. Her slender fingers automatically shot up to bury themselves in his hair, tangling into his spiky locks. He felt her pulse hammering under her sternum, jumping with indisputable life, and he sighed in relief. His hot breath on her chest left an ache its wake, her nipples puckering at the contrasting temperatures. Her heart hurt for him, and the guilt that continued to haunt his every waking moment. She forgave him of his sins a long time ago, but saw his constant struggle to forgive himself. Her body also ached for him, craved his touch, but she knew he was under duress. She was always forbearing and reserved, and gave the time and support he needed.

After a long minute his breathing evened out to its normal resting rate, its harshness extinguished. She smiled softly before reaching down to plant a chaste kiss on his smooth forehead and giggled when his hand reached up to grab her right breast _\- he must’ve read her mind_ , or maybe he too felt the growing hotness that was bubbling between them. His intrusive thoughts faded and in its stead left an indescribable need to pleasure her, to write his wrongs in any way he could, even if he had already proven himself more than enough to her.

He could never stop proving himself to others, mainly Sakura. Every time they fucked he would worship her, bring her pleasure to the point where she would sob and writhe underneath him.

Her melodic giggle at his antics turned into a sigh as he kneaded her breast, he captured her nipple in between his thumb and forefinger, rolling. He gazed at her beautiful reaction that followed.

He pondered for just a moment that maybe he could move on; maybe he could chase away the demons that haunted his every waking thought. That it could be just him and his new wife instead of the fucked up thoughts in his head that tagged along.

She was so patient with him, almost too much for her own good. She soothed him through his flashbacks, braved though the darkness of his mind, and pulled him out of the depths when he started sinking again. And he felt guilty, he felt so fucking guilty, but he was also grateful for her unconditional love. The edges of his eyes stung with unshed tears as he tilted his head up to capture her lips. She opened instantly for him and their tongues duetted an electric dance.

He felt at home with Sakura, no matter where they were or what kind of danger they faced, as soon as she laced her arms around him he felt homely, welcome, accepted. And it was times like these, as he sent her into a realm of intense pleasure and love, and as he held her in his naked embrace, tracing meaningless patterns against the plain of her soft arm, he was sure that as long as she was living, breathing, and surviving on this earth that he would be okay, that everything would be okay, and that his life could reach some resemblance of normalcy. Maybe not that second, that month, or even that year, but eventually. And as he reached down to tenderly rub her taut stomach, so delicate that it was more of a whisper than a touch, he thought of the life that could be establishing inside of her this very second, equal parts of her and him melding into one ( _they had been trying to conceive since the beginning of their marriage, just short of two weeks_ ). He contemplated for a long second how his life would not be in vain - through destruction there is rebirth - through death there is new life.


End file.
